Brother's cat killed

Notsosharp

The title says it all really; I just had a phone call from mum to tell me that my brothers cat Hester was killed on the road last night. He only told us she was missing today.
We were all attached to Hester; our family has a habit of "sharing animals" and Hester would visit my mum every night (she lives two doors down from my brother). I'm upset because she was such a sweet, loving little thing, when I looked after her she would be more interested in jumping on my knee then her food. I'm more upset for my brother though; he suffers from depression on and off and I know despite his profests he was very attached to Hester. Mum says he's put fresh food down for her in the hope she'll be back in the morning and the thought he'll wake up and she won't be is upsetting me; it's horrible losing a cat, I lost my little Holly three years ago and I was gutted. He was in a good mood too because we are meant to be going to London this weekend.

Is there anything I can say/do to try and make it better? I can't tell him about the "rainbow bridge" because to be honest it's not really either of our "thing" and it would feel utterly false. I'm just really upset both for Hester and my brother. I'm worried he'll slide into a depressive episode again and start having what he calls "dark thoughts".

Thank you Emma

My

krlyr

It may not be the best idea but you and your mum may have a better idea of how he'll react..but do you think a new cat to care for would help give him something to focus his attention on and keep him out of depression? Maybe a rescue cat that you can say Hester has "sent" to him?

Notsosharp

To be honest that's what I was thinking too. There's a few cats around here needing a home but I was thinking of offering him Billy (one of mine) because I know my brother likes him and calls him Lentil because he says he's the stupidist cat he knows and must have a lentil for a brain. Billy is, he'll sit by the back door for hours waiting to be let out without making a sound! It'd just be a temporary thing until be felt ok or able to have another cat.

I don't think he'd go for another cat being "sent" by Hester (I would because I believe in that sort of thing) but my brother doesn't. I might just tell him that when I lost Holly it was bad but also kind of good because then I could give Tinker (another cat of mine) a home when he came along and needed one .